


What Drives You

by waywardangel (leviarty)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s15e18 Despair, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27471301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviarty/pseuds/waywardangel
Summary: Eventually, he pulls himself up off the floor.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jack Kline & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 100





	What Drives You

It wasn’t the first time Castiel had died, nor the second or third. It wasn’t even the first time that his death felt _final_.

But it was different this time.

_I love you._

_Goodbye, Dean._

The first handful of times had affected him, sure. He’d been grumpy, moody, disconnected. But all of that paled in comparison to what he felt when Lucifer had run him through. Seeing him lying there, motionless, his wings burned into the ground. It had felt so true and final then.

He had been so angry then, so full of rage. If he hadn’t focus on that, then regret would’ve consumed him. For not having done more, for not having said all he needed to say.

He didn’t feel alive again until Cas was back home.

He should’ve said it then.

He should’ve said it then, but he was too damn happy to have Cas back, why ruin it with all of that.

He had almost said it in purgatory, their second trip though, but Cas had stopped him.

He had been so sure then, _so certain_ , that Cas had known. That he had known and didn’t reciprocate.

So, Dean had buried it all back down, shoved everything he felt back out of sight where it belonged.

But Cas hadn’t known, had he.

_The one thing I want… it’s something I know I can’t have._

They had wasted so much time.

And Dean had wasted his last chance to say it.

Eventually his phone stopped buzzing across the floor, and maybe if he had been even remotely aware, he would’ve realized that he should call his brother back, tell him that he was…

Well. He wasn’t okay, was he?

He was lost. He was nothing more than the broken shell of a man who had lost everything. His last chance at happiness. Gone.

Eventually, the tears stopped flowing. Only once there was nothing left.

Sam found him there, slumped against the wall with his face in his hands. Dean didn’t know how long it had been, but the blood and the tears had long since dried.

Sam said something, but Dean couldn’t hear it over the ocean of nothingness in his ears.

Sam sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him closer. Dean found some comfort in it, dropping his head to his brother’s shoulder, but he wasn’t sure it would ever be enough.

Eventually, he realized that Jack was there as well, standing in the doorway, looking nearly as lost as Dean himself felt. “Jack?” Dean said, his voice coming through hoarse and raw.

“Hello,” the kid said softly. His looked at his hand, raised as though instinctively, and forced it back down to his side. “Do you… do you need anything?”

Water, probably. Cas. A bed, maybe.

Dean reached out toward Jack, urging him closer.

Jack frowned in confusion, but stepped into the room, and joined them on the floor at Dean’s other side. Dean wrapped an arm around him and didn’t let go.

_Why does this sound like goodbye?_

_Because it is._

Eventually, he pulled himself up off the floor, and dragged himself down to the kitchen for that glass of water.

In a sort of tense confusion, Jack and Sam followed after him. They looked to each other, then back at Dean as he gulped down enough water to make his stomach turn. He could see in their eyes that neither had any idea what to say or do, maybe too afraid to ask.

They were probably right to be.

“Billie is gone,” he said finally. “Cas summoned the empty and it took them both.”

“How?” Sam asked. And then “Why?”

“They had a deal,” Jack said, sinking into on of the chairs. “Cas had made a deal to save _me_. It’s all my fault.”

“Don’t do that,” Dean said. “He died for both of us, for _all_ of us. He was at peace with that decision. Don’t blame yourself.” As if Dean himself was even remotely capable of taking that advice.

Jack looked up at him, his eyes narrowed.

“Do as I say, not as I do,” Dean said, sensing the kid knew exactly how much guilt was resting on Dean’s shoulders at that moment. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Regardless, Billie wasn’t the one taking Apocalypse World refugees, it was Chuck.”

Sam shook his head. “Not just the refugees. Everyone.”

“What?”

“He took everyone. We didn’t pass a soul on the way back here. When you didn’t answer, I thought…”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “He really took everyone?”

Sam shrugged. “Everyone between here and Minnesota at least.”

“Why even bother leaving us?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know, kid. Maybe he thought we’d finally give up.”

“Haven’t we?” Sam asked.

Dean shook his head. “No. We’re gonna kill ourselves a god. Maybe we’ll die trying, but I’m not done, yet.”

_I love you._

Eventually, Dean pulled himself up off the floor, ready to fight with whatever he had left.

He never saw himself as Cas had seen him.

_I know how you see yourself, Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You’re destructive and you’re angry, broken; you’re daddy’s blunt instrument. You think that hate and anger, that’s what drives you, that’s who you are. It’s not. And everyone who knows you, sees it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you’ve done for love. You raise your little brother for love, you fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are._

He found himself needing to prove, not to Cas or to anyone else, but to _himself_ , that he was worth all of it.

He was driven by anger and despair. But that wasn’t all.

_I love you, too._

**Author's Note:**

> [Silence / Truth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27480442) is a sort of continuation of this, if you desire the actual happy ending.


End file.
